How my career in newspapers took me to the other side of the world

Nub News editor Philip Evans continues his series looking back over his 55-year career in journalism, many years of which have been spent covering East Devon.

One of the big challenges of managing the local newspaper group in East London was to modernise the manner in which we produced our titles.

I referred in a previous article to having to shut down a printing press in Essex which was manned by many of the militant printers which were sacked by Rupert Murdoch at Wapping, resulting in my car windscreen being smashed by pickets when I drove into the print plant.

It was a frightening experience and I also started getting calls in the middle of the night with "we know where you live" messages.

After the press was silenced for the last time, we found a circle of paper reels (like huge toilet roles) with a slight opening. Inside we found two beds where the printers took it in turns to sleep on their shift.

All the old Spanish practices that had nearly brought national and local papers to their knees were still very much alive in this outpost of militancy in Essex.

But we could not help laughing when we started to get complaints that some of the last papers printed contained a profanity scrawled in large letters with a felt tip pen.

The sacked printers attempted to have the final say when they wrote "b*****ks" across some of the pages which were then delivered free to the occasional address in Ilford. Our readers were definitely not amused.

I got no pleasure in closing down the press or making skilled printers redundant. But the escalating cost of running a press and the number of lost hours through strikes was putting many publishing groups in jeopardy with the ultimate result of many more jobs being lost.

I was also one of the first newspaper managers in London to modernise the pre-press process (getting the words onto a page).

When I arrived in Dagenham our cost per page, using the outmoded cut and paste methods, was £54. By the time it left, it was down to £14, a huge saving when we printed 40,000 pages a year. It turned a huge loss into an acceptable profit for the new owners who recruited me.

During this period I was summoned to the Lansborough, opposite Hyde Park, one of the capital's most luxurious hotels where my ultimate boss, Tony O'Reilly, always stayed when he was in London.

Tony, one of the world's most successful and charismatic businessmen, also had a significant holding in a group of newspapers in Australia. I had no idea why Tony wanted to see me and was a bit apprehensive when I knocked on the door to his suite.

Tony was more than aware that the British press was leading the way in revolutionising the newspaper industry and felt that his Australian group was perhaps lagging behind the UK.

He asked me if I could think of someone who knew the industry well to go to Australia to lecture on the many ways the British press had changed.

I recommended Roy Greenslade, who had just been sacked by Robert Maxwell, editor of the Daily Mirror. That was the same Roy Greenslade who has just come out as an IRA sympathiser.

Tony thought about it for a minute or two but then sprung a complete surprise on me. "No," he said, "I want you to do it and you have three weeks to prepare."

And that's how I found myself flying first class on Singapore Airlines to Brisbane. It was the first time I had flown long-haul and first class.

In fact, there were only two of us in first class – me and Mick Hucknell from Simply Red. One thing about the flight that I shall never forget, Mick Hucknell was wearing sandals and I had never seen anyone with such dirty feet!

My immediate boss asked if I had ever flown long haul before and advised me not to touch any alcohol on the 28-hour flight. The service on Singapore Airlines was fantastic and Mick and me virtually had a hostess each who never got tired of asking whether we wanted another glass of Champagne.

By the time we got to Brisbane, arriving in the most glorious sunrise, I felt quite squiffy but thought all would be well as I could rest all day before starting a 17-venue lecture tour of the Australian Provincial Newspapers from Mackay in the north to Coffs Harbour in the south, right down the glorious Gold and Sunshine coast.

But I was a bit alarmed, in view of the amount of Champagne I had drunk, when the executive who met me at the airport said we were going straight to one of the centres for the first lecture.

Actually, it went splendidly well and the alcohol numbed any nerves I might have had and I even managed to get a few laughs. The news soon got round the group.

"You've got to go a listen to this Pom!" – and I had full houses for the rest of the tour.

It was a marvellous experience for me, I loved the Australians and they treated me with great kindness. It led to an offer to take over as managing director of one of the companies, with a huge salary I reluctantly refused.

Tony O'Reilly also bought into the South African Press owning all the major newspapers, including The Johannesburg Star, the Durban Daily News, the Cape Argus and The Sowetan. Tony had befriended Nelson Mandela who spent his first Christmas with him in the Bahamas after his release from prison.

Tony was already a hero in South Africa as he had played rugby for the British Lions as an Irish international and held the record for the most tries scored.

Most of the South African press was owned by American companies and this was not acceptable for the ANC when they came into power, so Tony was well placed to buy into the South African press.

South Africa is a marvellous country but quite volatile and very dangerous at this time, the early 1990s. At this time I was managing the sports publishing arm of Independent Newspapers, having built a number of titles in the UK covering soccer, rugby, cricket, American football and basketball.

We were looking to extending these into South Africa and Australian and on my first visit to Johannesburg I had to make a presentation to the equivalent of WH Smith, based on a trading estate on the outskirts of Joburg.

I was staying at the Carlton Towers hotel, one of the tallest buildings in downtown Johannesburg and booked a cab to pick me up and take to the company where I was making the presentation.

On the way back the taxi broke down during the rush hour just as it was getting dusk. The driver kept turning the ignition and flooded the engine. Then I heard fro a loudspeaker with the police saying we were blocking the road and they were going to bump us off the road.

They did so with a great deal of force and we ended up in a side road. The driver got out an opened the bonnet with steam coming from the engine. Suddenly a crowd gathered around the car and after what seemed an eternity I realised the driver had done a runner.

This was before the days of mobile phones and laptops. I was carrying a slide projector in a pilot's case and had no alternative but to walk back to the hotel. It was probably a good mile away but I could see it in the distance because it was so tall.

So here was this white man in a prominently black industrial area, walking the busy streets of Johannesburg carrying a large case.

The nearer I got to the hotel, the quicker I walked and by the time I got to the Carlton my heart was pounding. I went straight to the bar and ordered a double brandy.

The barman, who I had got to know as I never ventured out in the evening, looked at me shaking his head, and said: "Mr Evans, you're are a very lucky man to be alive."

Next week: Writing a book with Rob Andrew at the 1995 Rigby World Cup in South Africa.

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